Nuffnang

Monday, September 27, 2010

A year ago, I spent the night in a mall alongside others stuck amidst the floods as a result of a typhoon. I walked and saw its carnage. I, on behalf of my fellow countrymen, appreciate the efforts of those who tried to chip in and help.

Walking home that fateful Sunday morning and seeing what transpired during the night, it really surprised me as to how we were caught off-guard, unprepared and shellshocked we all were. All the mud, the damage, the carnage. Good thing we were able to secure electricity that night.

I hope we learned from that experience and move on to become better prepared and better focused on handling disasters like this in the future.

Onto other things:

I'll need a miracle to beat GITC. You heard me, Aaron Rodgers? I need an aerial attack to work. And if you stall, I'll need Mason Crosby to make field goals. You got that?

Boise State did enough to stay in the chase, but what is interesting now is that Nevada is giving them an unintentional lift. They meet on Thanksgiving Friday at Reno. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech helping the Broncos out with a shutout against Boston College.

Oregon escapes with a win against Arizona State with an undefeated Stanford (fresh from blasting the Irish that had the Stanley Cup in their midst) looming in the horizon.

Ohio State and Wisconsin plaster their opponents with 70+ scores. Their Big Televen play opens next week with Buckeyes facing the Zookers and the Badgers facing the Spartans. Speaking of which, we still don't know if Dantonio is going to coach, but Don Treadwell's doing fine so far.

The Red River rivalry lost a little luster as Oklahoma's stumbling through and Texas actually losing in Austin.

Things are about to get ug(a)ly in Athens. First, they lose at Starkvegas. Then, they kick out a player.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

So, the Nuggets finally relented and decided to do the inevitable and listen to trade offers involving Carmelo Anthony. They're not going to get full value, but they'll try. Who should be trying to pry away him from the Rocky Mountains?

These are in no particular order, by the way.

1. Los Angeles Clippers. Homerism aside, they have an interesting trade chip (David Kahn's unprotected future 1st round pick. You can thank Adrianna Lima's husband). They can also dangle any combination of Chris Kaman, Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon and Aminu. In the end though, Sterling will nix it for he is Donald Sterling.

2. Chicago Bulls. Any deals that Denver would be interested in would probably involve Joakim Noah. The Bulls would like to jettison Luol Deng out of Chi-town at this point. Other than that, no dice.

3. New Jersey Nets. If this Russian billionaire is like the one that's running Chelsea FC, they will be looking for a star. They struck out on Lebron (for now), so they train their eyes on Melo for the Barclays marquee. They can trade Derrick Favors, a gaggle of big men and possibly Devin Harris.

4. New York Knicks. Because they are Melo's top choice. Unfortunately, they don't exactly have the ammo for a deal. They'll need a conduit third team in the mix.

5. Philadelphia 76rs. The Sixers would be interesting if they can part with Iggy and/or Brand. Yes, Elton pretty much sucked since he left the Clips to sign that huge contract. Iggy played well in Istanbul, but he's a glue guy paid like a superstar (sort of what Rudy Gay is now).

6. Orlando Magic. They are so ridiculously deep that they can offload them onto someone and not miss a beat. Gortat / Bass would be included, as would probably Vince. Hey, they can jettison the rights to the coward named Fran Vasquez.

7. Washington Wizards. Melo grew up in Baltimore, so a hometown trip may be what he needs. He would also be relieving pressure on John Wall to become a scorer and focus more being a distributor. It's unlikely though because it will definitely involve Gilbert Arenas' contract, which is highly immovable.

8. Los Angeles Lakers. Imagine Melo with Kobe and Pau vis-a-vis the South Beach Diet of Wade, Lebron, and Bosh. They'll have to part with Odom and Bynum to do this, for starters. If Kupchak pulls this one off, God help us.

9. Houston Rockets. Given that Yao Ming is the Zydrunas Ilgauskas 2.0, Daryl Morey has some nice trade chips he can use to snag Melo (Kevin Martin or Luis Scola, but not both).

10. Atlanta Hawks. I just think that the Hawks need to shake their offensive lineup a little bit. I have a sense that there is not really much upside left and they need to fix it to compete with the upgrades that Miami and Boston conducted. A Melo-JR Smith for Joe Johnson-Marvin Williams swap could help both squads.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

I dunno what's going on with state of education in your neck of the woods, but the interesting thing that's going on in the Motherland as of late, is that our Education Department has released a memo barring teachers in public schools (that may extend to private schools in the future) to assign homework on Fridays. The premise is that the students deserve to enjoy the weekend and that homework cuts into that time.

I would have bought the idea, if our educational system can handle getting the kids straightened out, but with all the woes and deficiencies, that puts a lot of pressures on the academe.

Then again, one could only be bitter with them getting the weekend off, something I never experienced when I was their age. Lucky kids.

In other news, the collegiate basketball final participants have been decided. The first game between my alma mater and Far Eastern University will take place on the 25th of September. We handily dispatched our Final Four opponent yesterday. Feels good. In addition, yesterday was a double whammy as my college alma mater's high school sealed their third consecutive title. Yup, the college is eager to get this guy into the college basketball scene.

Put it this way, there more lies a social construct to who you recruit. It comes with the territory. You just hope it pans out, right Urban? Meanwhile, said Gators were dispatching a woebegone Volunteers squad whose former coach lashed out a bitterness rant against another.

Football is always considered as an homage to gladitorial combat. Injuries come with the territory. Some just can't handle that.

Some people have way too much time on their hands, but this looks really cool.

Mike Singletary is very very underrated with the sound bytes, because we are overwhelmed with Rex Ryan ones.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

These are some of the things that we learned from the World Basketball Championships

1. Kevin Durant is ready to take the best player mantra right now. If there is any doubt that he is not among the best in the world, leading the so-called B-team to first gold medal in the tourney since Dream Team II erased all that. I think he will win the 2010-11 NBA MVP if Oklahoma City takes the next step.

2. Hidayet Turkoglu gets a bounce back year in his Phoenix debut. Nothing like playing well for your flag to rejuvenate you after a lousy season. It happened with AK-47 before.

3. Lithuania will be dangerous in the Eurobasket 2011. Finishing third in the tournament sure made things look good for a team with only one NBA player (Linas Kleiza) on the current roster. Watch out for a future NBA player named Donatas Montejunas on that roster by then.

4. The Serbian resurgence is primed up. I still cannot get over the Milos Teodosic bomb against Spain. Turkey needed a block in the final seconds to escape with a semifinal win. Like Lithuania, they only have one current NBA player (Nenad Krstic). And after that nasty incident in Greece, they surely needed this good set of news.

5. Luis Scola. Argentina had no Manu Ginobili and Andres Nocioni got hurt in the path to Istanbul. Already known as one of the most hardworking players in the NBA, he then raised it up a notch. He averaged 27.1 pts (tops in the Tourney), 7.9 rebounds (4th), 35.9 minutes (3rd), 56.6 % shooting (5th). With all the uncertainty surrounding Yao Ming, Luis Scola can surely fill the void.

6. Playing bodes well for the upcoming NBA season. The future of USA Basketball looks really good. Youngsters like Russell Westbrook, Eric Gordon and Stephen Curry really benefited from the experience. NBA fans now have an idea on certain players who will be coming in this season, like Mozgov for the Knicks, Splitter for the Spurs, Asik for the Bulls and Erden for the Celtics.

7. Hard to argue the best game of the tourney. Brazil vs Argentina (Scola vs Huertas showdown) or Spain vs Serbia (Teodosic bomb) or Turkey vs Serbia (The Block) would be the prime choices.

Yup, football fever has taken over. Already 2 200+ comment posts and another 100+ comment post for the past 2 weekends. You guys surely love your football. Especially when the writers and commenters are either a Spartan, an Irish, a Gator, a Vol, a Nittany Lion, a Buckeye or a Yellowjacket or a Giant, a Jet, a Dolphin or a Patriot. I actually missed out on the commenting madness the past two days. To prepare for this post (as I always do), I had to backread the posts and comments to set the table as to what I am going to write home on.

As for me, I watched the final regular season game of my alma mater. We lost by 2 pts, but we could have won the game with the missed free throws and a missed layup in the final seconds. However, we already secured the twice to be advantage by winning our game last September 5 against the University of Santo Tomas (the game where you saw my picture from last week's TMA). The Final Four is scheduled this week. Hopefully, I can write home something positive from that and I can relate them to you on next week's TMA.

Oh, and the VMAs took place last night, where I found this picture of someone that our newest member of the S&F team would absolutely appreciate...

NL MVP race still undecided, because Albert Pujols just made his presence felt. On the other hand, Domo Arigato, Mr. Joey Votto.

Welcome to Rocktober. After they stole one from the Reds, Jason Giambi gets his 1st hit against the Diamondbacks in style. That's 10 straight. They are now creeping closer to the NL West division lead, which is a toss-up by itself, thanks to Tim Lincecum.

Monday, September 6, 2010

It's Labor Day in the United States, and I am pleased to say that my job will allow me to have the day off today. But writing blog posts is a 24/7 responsibility for the site and the quest to provide quality content is always a responsibility all of us writers have. It always helps to have readers suggest possible posts.

Whilst college football marked its opening this weekend, college basketball for my alma mater is picking up. One more game to go before the end of the regular season. Toting a 10-3 record, they are a game behind Far Eastern University, whom they will be facing this Saturday, September 11th. Yes, that is a significant date. We lost to them in the previous round robin, but one missed lay-up was the difference.

Meanwhile, yesterday I had the opportunity to watch them seal the twice-to-beat advantage in the Final Four, albeit in a scary fashion. The special thing about this game is that I watched the game at courtside level. I somehow lucked out in getting one, which costs slightly over $7. Usually, these particular seats are always snapped up, especially when it comes to rivalry games.

The experience of watching it down there is really great. It will probably be unlikely for a repeat with the playoffs looming, but I would like another crack at it.

Hereforth are the content action:

Revis Island is ready for the upcoming season. Caretakers like Randy Moss and Brandon Marshall are to be advised.

Final roster cuts have been made, some look bad, but others look deserving.